It
appears to be something of a rite of passage for African-American comedians
to get into drag to play an usually overweight, usually older woman. It has
been done by Eddie Murphy (several times, including The Nutty Professor
and Norbit), Tyler Perry (the Madea movies), the Wayans
Brothers (White Chicks), Cedric the Entertainer (Cedric the
Entertainer Presents), Keenan Thompson (Saturday Night Live),
Miguel Nuñez (Juwanna Mann) and Jamie Foxx (In Living Color).

Martin Lawrence has done it many times himself with a character on his
sitcom Martin and two previous Big Momma’s House films on his
résumé. While no one in the world
was really waiting around for the further adventures of the Big Momma
character, Like Father Like Son makes it a trilogy as Lawrence pulls
his muumuu and fat suit out of mothballs. And it introduces a new
generation of comedian to cross dressing, allowing Brandon Jackson to play
his son and partner in gender confusion.

Now
personally, I find very little about men in drag funny. In fact, I don’t
like movies where white actors go in drag any more than the above mentioned
titles – I’m talking to you, Mrs. Doubtfire. To me, only two movies
along those lines have ever worked, but they were classics – Some Like It
Hot and Tootsie – and it was not because of the man in the dress
but the quality of the writing. A man dressed in women’s clothes is not
funny in and of itself, you have to do something with the conceit to make it
worth anyone’s time.

This
makes you wonder why another Big Momma movie is coming out five years
after Big Momma’s House 2 bombed.

To
make things even more inexplicable, the story stops dead periodically to
break into complicated pseudo-Glee/High
School Musical dance routines.

Particularly odd was one in which the entire cafeteria starts dancing wildly
and for some reason Big Momma ends up frugging on a lunch table – which
eventually collapses under the weight. That's hysterical, right? Because
she's fat, get it? But wait, isn't she just a skinny man wearing a fat
suit? So why did the table collapse? Apparently the filmmakers don't
realize that a fat suit could not possibly weigh as much as an actual fat
person does, otherwise no one would be able to wear one of the outfits.
More likely, they couldn't even be bothered to spend even a moment
considering simple, obvious facts like this one.

And
you know what, if they can’t be bothered then neither can I. There is
nothing overtly offensive about Big Momma’s Like Father Like Son, but
it is just so blandly mediocre that there is no real reason to spend your
precious time on watching it.